Phil Spector flew into a "petulant fit of rage", pulled a gun on an
unarmed actress and "put a bullet in her head" after a night of
heavy drinking, a Los Angeles court has heard.

During opening statements of the eccentric music producer's murder retrial, jurors were told Spector killed Lana Clarkson, a struggling B movie actress, with a single gunshot wound to her mouth as she prepared to leave his home around 5am more than five years ago.

The prosecution sought to portray the producer as a man with "a very rich and lively and active history of violence" towards women involving guns, a man who harboured rage and hatred towards women and once declared: "Women are all f****** c****. They all deserve a bullet in their head."

Miss Clarkson, the 40-year-old blonde found dead at the producer's home in February 2003, was "simply the latest in a very long line of women who had suffered abuse at the hands of Philip Spector," prosecutor Alan Jackson told the court.

Spector, 68, is on trial for a second time for the murder of Miss Clarkson, whose body was found in the foyer of his suburban mansion just east of Los Angeles on February 3, 2003. His first trial ended in a mistrial a year ago after five months of testimony with a deadlocked jury split 10 to 2 in favour of guilt.

In an opening statement similar to the one he gave at the original trial, Mr Jackson told jurors that prosecution evidence would introduce them to "the real Philip Spector" and "paint a very clear picture of a man who, when confronted with the right circumstances... turns very sinister and very violent and ultimately deadly".

The diminutive defendant, who arrived at court in a dark, pin-striped three piece suit with frock coat and braces accompanied by two towering bodyguards and his young wife Rachelle, sat next to his lawyer, showing no emotion as the prosecutor spoke.

He denies murder and remains, since his December 2003 arrest, free on one million dollars bail, living at the sprawling home where the alleged murder took place.

In a presentation criticised by the defence as "dramatic" in which he mimed pointing a gun at jurors and thumped a lectern to simulate the sound of a gunshot, Mr Jackson described "the events leading up to the murder".

He told the court the rock music producer, famous for developing the pioneering Wall of Sound recording technique in the 1960s, had toured a variety of Hollywood restaurants and bars, drinking continually, before arriving at the House of Blues nightclub around 2am.

There he met Miss Clarkson for the first time. She was working as hostess of the VIP section and he invited her back to his secluded, "palatial estate on a hill" for a nightcap, Mr Jackson said.

Around 5am, Spector's driver heard a gunshot and saw his employer emerge from the back door.

"He had in his right hand a revolver...dripping between his fingers was the tiniest bit of blood," the prosecutor told the court.

And then "Philip Spector confessed to what had just happened inside the house", Mr Jackson said, telling his driver: "I think I killed somebody".

The prosecutor told jurors they would hear from five other women who had also been threatened by an armed Spector after he had been drinking heavily and flown "into a rage" when they tried to end the evening.

The women had all had guns pointed at them, often at their faces, Mr Jackson said, demonstrating Spector's "conscious disregard for human life". Their evidence would "establish a pattern" to explain how Miss Clarkson fell victim to Spector, he added.

"In his mind, she was simply just another woman who deserved a bullet in her head," the prosecutor said.

Doron Weinberg, a San Francisco lawyer who Spector hired after the mistrial, countered that the prosecution's theory about the producer's alleged "pattern" of behaviour towards women was "preposterous", "theatrical" and "misleading".

He acknowledged that while Spector may have a foul mouth, bad temper and have owned and "waved guns", he had "never fired a gun at a living being" and was not responsible for Miss Clarkson's death. Instead, Mr Weinberg said, the actress, who had swiftly downed "five or six drinks" after arriving at Spector's house, had killed herself.

The nearly 6 ft blonde, whose most famous role was in Roger Corman's 1985 cult classic The Barbarian Queen, was depressed about her "stagnated" career, turning 40 with such poor prospects, had money worries, an addiction to prescription painkillers and a history of binge drinking, Mr Weinberg said.

He quoted emails from the actress in which she wrote: "I am going to tidy my affairs and chuck it, 'cuz it's really all too much for just one girl to bear."

He said the prosecution had no scientific evidence to indicate Spector killed Miss Clarkson, pointing out that there were no signs of a struggle; there was no blood on the right sleeve of the producer's white jacket consistent with him firing the gun at close range; his fingerprints and DNA were not on the gun while Miss Clarkson's hands had both gun shot residue and blood spatter on them; and she had a broken finger nail consistent with having fired the gun.

"Every piece of evidence in this case is completely consistent with Lana Clarkson ending her own life," Mr Weinberg said. He suggested that her seeing Spector's gun in a bureau drawer and "in that moment (deciding) to do something impulsive and self-destructive, was entirely consistent with where she was in her life."

"Phil Spector did not shoot Lana Clarkson," he told the court. "It was a suicide because she was the person who pulled the trigger." The trial continues.